Thomas Pearson
Thomas Pearson is Reed's first boyfriend at Easton, a good-looking, mysterious senior with anger management and alcoholism issues. Thomas comes off as a player yet also has a sense of recklessness and danger about him, which automatically draws Reed — as well as other girls at Easton — to him. He and Reed have a two to three week fling — in which Reed loses her virginity — before trouble surfaces. In Private, Reed quickly discovers that Thomas comes from a wealthy yet dysfunctional family, one that is devoid of affection and love. She also learns that Thomas is a drug dealer, a fact that all the students, save her, seemed to know. Shocked and upset that Thomas had kept this from her, she attempts to end things with him while he begs her not to and insists that he loves her. As penance, he invites her to a secret party in the woods later that night; upon her arrival, Thomas appears drunk and tries to force himself on Reed. Embarrassed and aware of the Billings girls' presence, Reed rejects Thomas and frees herself from his grasp. He, in turn, abusively yells at her and pushes her to the ground. The Billings girls, who have witnessed everything, come to Reed's aid and angrily reprimand Thomas for his behaviour. They escort Reed back to her dorm and warn her to stay away from Thomas from then on, which she agrees to do. The next morning, Thomas comes to see Reed in her room. Though at first she expresses her anger for how he'd treated her, she soon comforts him upon seeing him break down and cry. He admits that he has a problem with alcohol and begs for Reed to stick with him and help him get through it. He invites her to brunch with his parents, who were coming visit him later that day, and says that he had told them all about her and they couldn't wait to meet her. He then kisses her and leaves. When Reed goes to wait for him outside his dorm later on, she happens upon Thomas's parents; she introduces herself but quickly realizes that they have no idea who she is. After waiting for Thomas for several minutes, Mr. Pearson goes inside his dorm to try to find him, but comes out a few minutes later, alone and clearly angry that Thomas was nowhere to be found. Thomas disappears at the end of the first book, a deception that Reed does not take kindly. Suspicions and shocking evidence related to his disappearance lead up to the events of a three-month scandal at Easton. At the end of the second book, Invitation Only, Thomas's dead corpse is found in a field near Easton, and in the third book authorities begin to question students about the murder. Among the students, Josh Hollis, Thomas's roommate and best friend, soon becomes a suspect; Noelle, Ariana, and Kiran attempt to convince Reed that Josh has all the right motives, and that all the evidence points to him. Reed, who by the third book has already become Josh's girlfriend, refuses to believe them; however, Josh is arrested at the end of Untouchable. At Thomas's funeral, Reed angrily observes that Thomas's parents don't seem to be particularly upset by his death and are treating the funeral as an event. She also notices a dark-haired young man staring at her, and observes that he looks vaguely familiar. Later on, the Billings girls confirm that the young man was Blake Pearson, Thomas's older brother, who so resembled Thomas in looks. They matter-of-factly state that the two of them had hated each other, and that hatred had culminated in a huge fistfight at Easton two years before. Upon meeting Blake in Untouchable, Reed is unhinged when she realizes that Blake's voice sounds exactly like Thomas's. Reed learns from Josh that Blake had an ongoing affair with the school secretary, Ms. Lewis-Hanneman, that had been widely known among the students for years but was kept secret from the school staff and board. She also learns that Ms. Lewis-Hanneman and Blake had met at Easton on the night Thomas disappeared; they had run into Josh as well, and could therefore testify in court and have Josh freed from jail. Reed enlists Dash McCafferty's help to try to convince both Lewis-Hanneman and Blake to testify on Josh's behalf; but the task proves to be difficult when Lewis-Hanneman refuses to help, stating that by testifying she would have to reveal her relationship with Blake, and risk losing her job at Easton and ruining her marriage. She soon acquiesces, however, and Josh is freed. In the fourth book, the circumstances behind Thomas's sudden disappearance are revealed. On the way back to Easton from a party, Reed and the Billings girls pause to take pictures; when Reed is asked to take a snap of the others, she happens to find a picture of a man's naked torso in Kiran's camera, and immediately recognizes Thomas's body. Frightened and suspicious, Reed demands an explanation and threatens to have the girls arrested. Noelle manages to calm her down and explains that the day after Thomas treated Reed abusively at a party, the Billings girls tied up and blindfolded Thomas while he was in a hangover; using Josh Hollis's car, they took him to a field near Easton and tied him to a tree, naked (thus explaining the pictures in Kiran's camera, which she thought she had deleted). There they changed their voices and taunted him, then went back to Easton when he passed out. Reed, horrified, then accuses the girls of killing Thomas by leaving him in the cold, while Noelle insists that they loosened the ropes binding him to the tree before leaving, so that he could free himself when he woke up. Noelle assures Reed that they never killed Thomas, and had only treated him so because of the way he acted towards her at the party ("We did it for you, Reed."). In Confessions it is revealed that it was Ariana Osgood who killed Thomas. She went to untie Thomas but he threatened to tell the truth about her and said he loved Reed. Ariana then lost control and killed Thomas by whacking him with Josh's bat (leaving him a suspect) Ariana manages to corner Reed on the roof of Billings House, where she admits to murdering Thomas, whom she had been involved with prior to Reed's arrival at Easton. She claims that at the start of the year, Thomas had promised to reveal their secret relationship to everyone at the school, but had broken up with her upon meeting Reed. This drove Ariana mad with jealousy, and she conspired from then on to harm Reed. Category:Other Characters